Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Pasta & corn salad with red bell pepper sauce

Thank you guys giving me advice on my oven's knob. Tanna, Deborah and Cynthia, I listened to you, run a search on internet and got some crucial information. And yesterday I tested it on roasting a chicken, it turned out fine. Tomorrow I will try another setting for baking cake and see how... Since I'm still testing on the oven so I believe in the coming few posts, I won't do anything that involves baking.

Yesterday I was watching a local food channel and saw a chef do such a dish - sauteed garlic and red bell pepper, cooked with double/heavy cream and vegetable stock, then pureed, and tossed it with some fist-size pasta. A lovely idea but two things I don't like... as a meal I normally prefer my pasta savory rather than sweet (not even slightly); second, don't you think the size of his pasta is totally wrong? Anyway, I love his sauce; I keep his platform but change to play it with a salad dish: medium piston rings and sweet kernels are in, and adding roasted red pepper let my tastebuds sing! With fried sage leaves (or some dried herbs also sound good to me) to finish. If you have rucola, add it in, even better. Since sage leaves are used, this salad is perfect to enter this week of Weekend Herb Blogging. This event is found by our wonderful Kalyn, but this week WHB is guest hosted by Myriam from Once upon a tart. Please go to her site after the weekend and check for the round-up.

While I was taking some photos of my sage plant, I just couldn't stop myself being nosy and filmed my neighborhood... I see most people who live on the top floor tend to grow many plants and even trees... Tree in an apartment, in a city! Fantastic!

Pre-heat a skillet, add olive oil/butter, saute the garlic for 30 seconds over low heat, then add in red pepper, roasted pepper, tomato, and you may need to raise up the heat a bit, continue to saute for about 5 minutes. Add a few table spoons of stock and cream, simmer it for another 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Puree the sauce

To serve:

First, fry the sage leaves (pre-heat the oil first, then lower the heat during frying, it only takes 20 seconds to get done). I don't see the fresh sage leaves go well with this salad, but once they got fried, the original woodsy and grassy flavor are gone, but left with a superb crisp texture!

Wonderful pasta! I love fresh sage and use lots of it!Did you know that it is legal (or at least was 3 years ago) to grow marijuana, for personal consumption only, in Spain? That's why you see so many green balconies in Barcelona! And smell it so often on the street!

Lydia, thank you. And I love a lot of sauce, glad this one (seems to me) not having much fat.

Asha, the trees, plants and all do make things look different (huge better), don't they? Quite many people like to grow palm tree on roof tops too, pretty!

Meeta, thanks! My hubby is very Asian in his heart, but we have to save money before this dream (move to Hong Kong) comes true, that city costs a lot more...

Shn, BIG hello!!! The neigborhood looks good, now just hope our neighbors on next door are goodie-goodie; we had quite many bad storis about next-door-neighbors in other previous places, so fear still lingers :P

Blue Zebra, I love matching piston rings with corn kernels; their textures are indentical (to me). And thanks for your encouragement to my baking. I hate being blind-folded in setting the oven's heat, but not much choice for now...

Simona, you have a plenty of room to allow double cream :) :) I also see most neigbors in Roma, as long as any where they found soil around their houses, they will grow things. It is good!

Rose, many thanks! I like them too, and may like to tell more later :D

Burcu, oh I miss you too! Seems my camera having a little problem after all that traveling... hope it'll be fine soon...

Katie, really?!!! And I'm also so asmased by seeing (from bloggers in Italy and France) abundant poppy just growing wild! My grandfather because he smoking opium got kicked out...

Anh, thanks for your e-mail, and I changed the info *big hug* I always love city, in the past few years in NJ, small town livng was nice, but just not my thing.

Cynthia, big thanks to your previous tip! I love this sauce a lot, hope you'd like it as much as I do :D

Hooray!! Not only are you back--the recipe is marvelous. AND pictures of your neighborhood let me see in my mind where you live. However, soon there will be long lines of people trying to get into your home, to eat the delicious food. :) The pasta looks so good, I want some and would line up at your door, if I could.

Nice to see you're posting again. Sounds like you're having an interesting time with the oven knobs. Glad you're getting the hang of it. Love the sound of the sauce with red pepper and a touch of cream, yum.